Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, in his elements, comes across as a man who exudes a rare charm. Though born into an aristocratic family, able enough to afford being trained at Oxford University until he got into the military, he fought nonetheless to be free of his father’s stronghold. He carried this sense of independence of thought and action even into his last days.
After having an enviable but albeit brief career in the military as one of the 15 Nigerian commissioned officers of the total 250 officers in the Nigerian Army in 1958, he went on to lead the people of Biafra in a 1967 secessionist roll after misunderstandings with General Yakubu Gowon in a bloody war that lasted 3 years.
President Shehu Shagari granted him an official pardon in 1982 which allowed him to return home from where he had fled to after the Civil War, he did not completely do away with politics this time around. He was sometimes a beaten man after the war had ended; even losing a Senate seat election at a later foray into politics; yet in a rare reverence, he never lost the respect of his people who are of Igbo extraction. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), a political party initiated by him, survives till date while producing popular governors such as Peter Obi and Willie Obiano.
At the age of 77, he had a stroke which caused him to be admitted to UNTH, Enugu – he never fully recovered from the stroke. He was eventually taken for treatment in a hospital in London. There he died, approximately a year after his illness on November 26th 2011, with his children and wife Bianca, a former beauty queen who he married in 1994, by his side.
If the organizers of the burial knew about Ojukwu being given a state burial, the public was not privy to such detail. And so it happened that on February 27th 2012, when the body of the Ikemba Nnewi was flown in, the casket wrapped in the National Flag while a green Army Beret sat firmly on it, Ojukwu was given a full military funeral parade at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport with the ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, the First Lady, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, among other politicians and important personalities in attendance. His body was finally laid to rest on March 2nd 2012 in a befitting mausoleum in his hometown in Nnewi, Anambra State after being taken on a tour of some of the 5 South-Eastern states. Also present at the interment was Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, among other very important dignitaries.
Of course, the burial of such a figure would be a big deal. Ojukwu loomed large even in the reluctant admission of some of his old adversaries. Elders from the Eastern part of Nigeria pulled together to organize a befitting send forth for a man who ruffled feathers. The young were not left out of the ceremonies and paying of respects as most workers downed their tools while shops and offices closed up for days.
This indeed is a lesson in forgiveness and tempering justice with mercy in how the government handled Ojukwu’s legacy. As expected, the Anambra State government named a couple of monuments after him while bankrolling most part of the funeral expenses. Furthermore, the fact that the Federal Government thought it wise to overlook the fatalities the defection of a topmost military figure who led the secession of an important region away from Nigeria while fighting bitterly is a gesture which truly tested the ‘No Victor, No Vanquished’ declaration by General Yakubu Gown 41 year after.
It is a gesture which shows that above all things, beyond our differences as a strongly diversified nation split into a thousand and one entities and ethnicities, we can all come together in forgiveness and unite in strength as the bunch of broom unbroken and undefeatable.
You might also like:
- Kemi Badenoch Becomes First Black Woman to Lead a Major UK Political Party
- National Youth Dialogue Conference Set to Hold in Lagos
- 5 Characteristics Of A Patriotic Nigerian
- 25 Years Later, Is Nigeria “Truly Democratic?’’ – Peter Obi
